Training

I have done my training in Jurgis Matulaitis Day center for children. We had four weeks for this training: to analyse the case of child we have chosen and of course to improve ourselves as a future social workers.

In that Day center where I have done my training at the moment are nine children who are coming regularly. They all are about 9-10 years old. Children usually are coming at 3 o’clock in the afternoon and they are going home at about 7 o’clock in the evening. On Mondays we have sports activity and after that we are doing homework with children. From Tuesday to Thursday we are doing homework with children and after that we have some activities: social skills, preparing meal and arts. Only Friday is different because this day is only for playing – children don’t need to do their homework and they are really happy about it. If they have spare time between doing their homework and other activities, they are playing some games with us.

In this Day center are working two women – Violeta and Sigita. Usually there are coming few volunteers who are helping for them.

The first day I came there I thought I will go crazy because children were so naughty and they were not listening to me at all! But day after day they started to trust me and now we miss each other a lot.

In my opinion this training was very necessary for me because I understood how hard is to do social work and help people who have lots of problems and how important is social work for our society. I wasn’t sure that I want to be a social worker one day and to be honest, after this training I am quite confused. Of course it was first training for me and I don’t gave up – time will show what I will do in the future, maybe I will be a social worker…

Self - Assessment of Online Listening to Podcasts

I have listened two podcasts: „Worldwide, a Language Dies Every Two Weeks“ and „Children??s Doctors Group Calls for Early Medical and Educational Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorders“. I have taken them from the website http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/.

These two podcasts were not very dificult for me. I could not find the level of these podcasts but in my opinion the level of English was upper-iintermediate, so i could easily understand what speakers were talking about. Moreover speakers were not speaking very fast and because of that i could hear every single word. Both speaker‘s accent were American. I have listened both podcasts twice and then I have understood them completely. The reading of a transcript helped me to understand the contents because if I have not understood some words, I looked up the meaning of unknown words in a dictionary.

I think my ability to understand authentic speech is quite good because I have not had serious problems with listening these podcasts. I am not saying that I am compeletly prepared for our exam listening paper because I still need to work very hard on listening if I want to do my best during this exam.

There are many ways to improve my listening skills. Fistly, I should listen to podcasts as often as possible because it is really helpfull. Secondly, listening to authentic cassette recordings in class is helping as well. When I am watching English films on TV I am improving my listening skills as well,so I am going to do that as often as possible. Of course it is very helpfull to travel and work abroad for my English but this is quite impossible at the moment.

In my opinion if you really want to change something in your life, to improve yourselfe, you can make it quite easily – if there is a will- there is allways a way!

Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment is unwelcome advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. It is a tender subject all over the wolrd. Sexual harassment is a serious problem in Lihuania too and the dimension of the problem is continuing to expand. According to the research accomplished in 2006 by Vilnius university, about 21 percent of women at least one time have felt sexual harassmen. But on the other hand, according to the Equal Rights Inspector Institution only 3 complaints were received in 2005 and only one in 2006. These facts show that women in our society are afraid to say they are sexually harassed. They are afraid to speak about it loudly.

The first reason why women are afraid is that a lot of women think they are guilty by themselves and that sexual harassment is not a men fault, but a women. There exists a wrong attitude between Lithuanian women that this is a women guilty that men harass them sexually and carp to them. Due to this women in Lithuania are used to swallow they feel sexual harassment.

Moreover, our society plays an important role in this situation. The sexual harassment topic is taken in our society not unambiguously. Women who decide to protect themselves are condemnatory by others or even people start calling them like a “woman of easy virtue”. Low levels of our society consciousness determine a little number of women who dare to fight with sexual harassment. The research accomplished this year by Equal Rights Inspector Institution proved the statement that our society think or even keep that women are guilty that men are harassing them sexual.

The third reason why women are afraid to say they feel sexual harassment is a fear of losing one's job. Often the victims are younger women. According to the research, mostly women who are between 20-30 years old feel sexual harassment. They may have been in the job only for a short while and may not have the confidence to make a complaint while others are too embarrassed to report the incident or worry about that no one will believe them. The researches notice that women usually who are young, not married or divorced, working between men often feel sexual harassment. In addition, the situation often is complicated as the faultfinder is their direct manager.

In conclusion sexual harassment is unwanted and unwelcome sexual behavior that is repeated often enough. But what does „unwelcome“ mean? It really depends on a person. What one person calls unwelcome can be perfectly OK to someone else. But there is the important thing : if a woman says she is being sexually harassed, and the man says he is only joking, it is the woman‘s words against man‘s. It is an important thing as in our society there still exists the phenom that men are righter than women especially when it is concerned with sexual harassment.

Drug Abuse

Drug abuse is major problem in many countries. A lot of money are spent internationally preventing drug use , treating addicts, and fighting drug-related crime. Although drug abuse threaten many people, their effects can also be combated successfully if people really want to change present situation.

Drug abuse causes many problems for countries and communities. The medical and psychological effects are very obvious and because of that addicts can not function as normal members of society. They often neglect or abuse their family memebers because after taking drugs they usually can not control their behaviour. Eventually they require expensive treatment or hospitalization. Crime is also conected with drugs. Huge police resources are needed to fight smuggling and dealing because criminal gangs develop with the money from drugs.

However, there is a way to stop drug abuse and education is the first battle. Children and teenagers need to be told at home and in school about drugs and what they can cause when people are using them. A second approach is to increase police manpower and powers to stop dealers and to enforce the law because nowadays police very often go in the same way with criminal gangs. However the main target should be the user. Families and counselors need to talk to children and people at risk to avoid that problem.

In conclusion, although the problem of drugs may seem impossible to eliminate, there are concrete steps that can be taken to weaken the hold of drugs on society. The danger from drugs is too great to ignore because more and more people everey day are getting into this slough.

Virginia Tech: As Strong a Place As it Has Always Been

How could you describe a nightmare? I believe everyone would say that the most damnedest thing for them would be to lose the beloved person!

When I heard about the tragedy in Virginia I couldn’t understand what kind of person could do such a thing?! How mad you have to be to kill so many people which haven’t done anything to you? Nothing at all! And when I saw this person in the Internet, I have understood that this person was more than mad – the way he was speaking, the way he was looking… you could see such an emptiness in his eyes and hear such an emptiness in his voice… it was scary and frightful, so frightful…

But nobody can change what have happened already. However, in my opinion, there would have been fever students killed in this massacre if American police would have done something! Because it is a nonsense that if two students are killed in the student’s hostile in the morning and university is still not closed – students are attending their lectures like nothing have happened! How could it be possible? It looks like for them someone’s life is nothing! Police should have taken much more restriction and this massacre would never have happened.I can not describe in words what I feel about this tragedy in Virginia because there is no such a words to describe such a feeling. But in my mind I can still hear the words George Bush, president of USA said: “They were in the wrong place at the wrong time…” how could such an important person to say such words?! I believe if he would have lost his children, he would understand how parents of these students feel when their lost their children and it seems like nobody care about it…

Chosing a Sudent Exchange Program to Come to the USA

Mostly everyone of us likes to travel and to see new countries, to learn about new cultures, to see how people live in different places in this world. Nowadays studying programs in universities are very good, so if you want you have an opportunity to go to your favorite country and to study there for certain period of time and even earn some money, if your university has an exchange program.

Lots of students from Lithuania mostly decide to go to the USA by the program “Work and travel USA”. Why exactly USA? In my opinion because this country is not in Europe and it is difficult to get there when you are not student because we need visa to get there. Besides, this country is really huge and you can see lots of interesting things there and of course to improve your English.

There are lots of good things about exchange programs and going to the USA for the learning purposes, however not everything is so nice. I have lots of friends who have already been in the UAS by this program and not all of them returned back home very happy about this country. Why? First of all, not all of them liked the lifestyle of American people, so they couldn’t get used to live like they do. Secondly, their food is far away different from Lithuanian (not everyone likes to eat in McDonald’s every day!). Thirdly, lots of people miss their home, especially relatives and friends.

I am person who loves to travel and learn new things but if I will decide to go somewhere by exchange program, I think it will be European country because USA is too far for me, and for other students who wants to study in their favorite countries for few months or even a year, I would advice to think: are you prepared to stay in another country for quite long time? Are you prepared to eat junk food? Are you prepared not to see people which you love for such a long time? Think... and make your own decision!

Employment Law

Employment law has come a long way from agriculture to industrialization and nowadays we have specific legislation for employment law.

In employment law employees have more legal rights than self-employed because they are in a stronger economic position. The 1978 Employment Protection Act requires that employee must be given at least a week’s notice if he or she is going to be dismissed and if they are dismissed unfairly or made redundant – they have the right to compensation. In addition, the same Act gives woman the right to have time off for the period while she is pregnant and after having a baby she has a right to return to her work. However, men over 65 and woman over 60 can not get no compensation for redundancy because in this age people usually retire and get pension. People who are complaining of discrimination in their work have the right to take their case to an industrial tribunal as well as people who are complaining about unfair pay for work of equal value. It is also known that EC law gives better protection to employees than English law so sometimes it is better to bring an action to European court. However, Sunday trading in Britain gives a lot of headache for EC because most of all European countries allow business to open every day. It is necessary to mention that the one of the first employment rights recognized by law was the right to strike and this right was slightly different in different countries.

In Western countries employees have more rights than employees in Japan, but on the other hand in this country workers enjoy more security in their work than many employees in Western countries. To sum up, nowadays have a lot of rights to be protected in their work and to feel safe – that is why so many people feel happy about their work.